


Checking the Boundary

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:42:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3400553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim is in Peru...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Checking the Boundary

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday challenge 'shadow'

The shadows seemed to be following him.

Jim Ellison had never considered himself to be a particularly imaginative man; he dealt with cold, hard facts most of the time, and had had considerable trouble coming to terms with the black panther, invisible to all but one other person, that he occasionally saw. He could accept, now, that it was his spirit animal; Incacha had been quite emphatic about it. "It is the symbol of a guardian," he said. "And that is what you are."

But if the shadows were following him... He paused and listened intently, and could hear nothing except the wind in the trees.

He shook his head impatiently. The shadows that were really only visible in his peripheral vision were nothing more than that, he told himself - shadows of the trees being blown in the wind, cast by the light of the not-quite-full moon.

He moved on.

Doing a circuit of the Chopek village, some five miles from it, every few days had become routine for him in the weeks since the helicopter crash that had left him stranded and alone. It was four days before the Chopek, led by Incacha, had arrived, drawn to him by a vision. Incacha had described to him how he had seen Enqueri searching the wreckage and the ground around it until he found all his men, and then buried them. Jim had been forced to accept that either Incacha had had a genuine vision or someone had been watching him and reported back to Incacha - but in those weeks, Jim had come to understand the shaman's integrity. He was quite sure that Incacha would not have decided to leave him struggling alone for those days.

He finished his circle and headed back to the village, as always taking a fractionally different route so as not to leave a distinct path that could lead enemies to it. He had no illusions; the drug cartel that was working in the area might be based twenty or thirty miles away, but if in their search for coca leaves they found the village, most of the men would be killed and the women and children taken and forced to work until they collapsed and died from exhaustion.

And although the moon was rapidly sinking, mostly hidden by the trees, so that it was now almost dark... there were still shadows behind and beside him that seemed to be following him...


End file.
